The El Gordo (The Fat One) Christmas lotto is the most long-established lottery draw in Spain with the large majority of the country’s inhabitants taking part. Believe it or not, this draw has turned out to be a national diversion with 98% of Spain’s citizens playing. This is not really surprising when you consider that the El Gordo is the largest prize fund lotto game globally. The typical Spanish resident spends approximately 73 Euros in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund is expected to surpass a staggering €2.20 billion. Here are a number of key features of the
El Gordo lottery: · More than 13,000 prizes are paid out. · It is operated by the Spanish Government.· There is an excellent 1 in 6 chance of winning a cash prize.· All prizes are paid out straight away and are tax exempt for Spain's citizens. · 70% of total ticket sales are paid out in prize money. Since December 1812 this Spanish national lottery has followed exactly the same procedure every year. Two big circular containers are used; one of them contains tens of thousands of small wooden balls representing all ticket numbers; the other one contains a smaller amount of wooden balls representing the prizes to be drawn. In the Lotería Nacional hall in Madrid, pupils of the San Ildefonso School (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results out loud in front of the public while Spanish radio and television stations transmit the occasion.
Due to the vast amount of numbers and prizes, this process takes approximately three hours to finish. In recent years, more than 4,800 individual numbers have collected no less than €1,000 per billete (€100 per décimo) in the Christmas draw. Those who do not win frequently come out with the predictable comment that "it's health that really matters". Participants who only get their money back will frequently re-invest the prize in a ticket for El Niño, the second most significant draw, held on January the 6th every year.
The two vessel system is the time-honoured method of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this approach is now kept exclusively for the legendary Christmas lotto draw. The rest of the weekly and 5 other yearly El Gordo draws operate using five vessels with ten balls in each, from where the winning numbers are selected.
Lottery retailers in Spain usually only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the biggest prizes frequently live in the same town or neighbourhood or work for the same firm. In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants shared approximately €500 million.
Traditionally, you could only participate in the
El Gordo if you were a citizen of Spain. However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you now have the chance to take part in this world famous Spanish lottery regardless of where you reside around the world. Some international El Gordo syndicates have also been introduced to not only allow more people access to this lottery but to boost their likelihood of collecting cash prizes as well.